The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post
Founded May 2005
Headquarters 770 Broadway
New York, NY 10003[1]
U.S.
Founder(s) Arianna Huffington (major)
Kenneth Lerer
Jonah Peretti
Andrew Breitbart
Key people Arianna Huffington (editor-in-chief)
Jimmy Maymann (CEO)
Roy Sekoff (editor)
Anne Sinclair (French edition editor-in-chief)
Employees 850
Parent AOL
Slogan(s) "The Internet Newspaper: News, Blogs, Video, Community"
Website huffingtonpost.com
Alexa rank negative increase 95 (April, 2015)[2]
Type of site Political weblog
Registration Optional
Available in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German, Portuguese, Korean, Greek
Launched May 9, 2005
Current status Active

The Huffington Post (sometimes abbreviated Huff Post or HuffPo) is an American online news aggregator and blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, Andrew Breitbart,[3][4] and Jonah Peretti, featuring columnists.[5] The site offers news, blogs, and original content and covers politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women's interests, and local news.

The Huffington Post was launched on May 10, 2005, as a liberal/left commentary outlet and alternative to news aggregators such as the Drudge Report.[6][7][8] On February 7, 2011, AOL acquired the mass market[9] Huffington Post for US$315 million, making Arianna Huffington editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group.[10][11] In 2012, The Huffington Post became the first commercially run United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize.[12]

In July 2012, The Huffington Post was ranked #1 on the 15 Most Popular Political Sites list by eBizMBA Rank, which bases its list on each site's Alexa Global Traffic Rank and U.S. Traffic Rank from both Compete and Quantcast.[13]

History

The Huffington Post was founded by Arianna Huffington in May 2005[14] and launched on May 9. It has an active community, with over one million comments made on the site each month.

Prior to The Huffington Post, Huffington hosted a website called Ariannaonline.com. Her first foray into the Internet was a website called Resignation.com which called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton and was a rallying place for conservatives opposing Clinton.[15][16][17]

In August 2013 the website banned anonymous comments.[18]

Local editions

In approximately June 2008 the site launched its first local version, HuffPost Chicago.[19] In June 2009 HuffPost New York[20] was launched, followed shortly by HuffPost Denver[21] which launched on September 15, 2009 [22] and HuffPost Los Angeles.[23] launched on December 2, 2009,[24] 2011 saw three new regional editions: HuffPost San Francisco since July 12, 2011,[25] HuffPost Detroit,[26] launched on November 17, 2011,[27] and HuffPost Miami, online since November 2011.[28] The most recent addition is "HuffPost Hawaii," launched in collaboration with the all online investigative reporting and public affairs news service Honolulu Civil Beat on September 4, 2013.[29]

International editions

The Huffington Post launched its first international edition, HuffPost Canada, on May 26, 2011.[30] On July 6 of the same year, the Huffington Post UK launched its UK edition.[31] On January 23, 2012, Huffington, in partnership with Le Monde and Les Nouvelles Editions Indépendantes, launched Le Huffington Post, and the launch of French-language edition is the first in a non-English speaking country.[32] On February 8, another French language edition was launched in the Canadian province of Quebec.[33] On May Day, a US-based Spanish-language edition launched under the name HuffPost Voces, replacing AOL's Hispanic news platform, AOL Latino.[34] The following month an edition for Spain was announced, as well as one for Germany.[35] On September 24, an Italian edition, L'Huffington Post, was launched, directed by journalist Lucia Annunziata in collaboration with the media company Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso.[36] On May 6, 2013, an edition for Japan was launched with the collaboration of The Asahi Shimbun, the first international edition in an Asian country.[37] With the launch of Al Huffington Post there is a third francophone edition, this time for the Maghreb area.[38] On October 10, Munich-based Huffington Post Deutschland has been put online in cooperation with the liberal-conservative magazine Focus, covering German-speaking Europe.[39] On 29 January 2014, the Brazilian version was launched as Brasil Post, in partnership with Abril Group, the first ever in Latin America.[40] In September 2014 Huffington Post announced they will launch in Greece, India, and introduce HuffPost Arabi, an Arabic version of the website.[41][42]

Vertical organization

In 2011, after its purchase by AOL, The Huffington Post subsumed many of AOL's Voices properties (including AOL Black Voices, which had originally independently established in 1995 as Blackvoices.com, and AOL Latino). The Voices brand was expanded in September 2011 with the launch of Gay Voices, a vertical dedicated to LGBT-relevant articles. Other established sections, such as Impact (launched in 2010 as a partnership between Huffington Post and Causecast),[43][44] Women, Teen, College, Religion and the Spanish-language Voces (en español) are also sorted under the Voices meta-vertical.

By late 2013, however, The Huffington Post was taking steps to operate as more of a "stand-alone business" within AOL, taking control of more of its own business and advertising operations, and focusing efforts on "premium advertising".[45]

Contributors

In addition to columns by Arianna Huffington and a group of contributors such as John Conyers, Harry Shearer, Jeff Pollack, and Roy Sekoff, The Huffington Post has many bloggers—from politicians and celebrities to academics and policy experts—who contribute on a wide range of topics. Specialist contributors include spiritual author Craig Taro Gold[46] and health expert Jeff Halevy.[47]

Celebrities are allowed to post blogs on the site, and a number have opted to do so over the years. In many cases, such as that of Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, content is cross-posted among multiple sites.[48]

The site also publishes columns by specialists in a wide range of fields such as Cenk Uygur, Anand Reddi on global health issues, Alice Waters on food, Taryn Hillin Associate Editor of Weddings and Post Divorce, Harold Katz on dental health, Suzie Heumann on sex, Diane Ravitch on education, Frances Beinecke and Phil Radford on climate change and the environment, Jacob M. Appel on ethics, Howard Steven Friedman on statistics and politics, Auren Hoffman on business and politics, Jon LaPook on medicine, Cara Santa Maria on science, Nancy Rappaport on child psychiatry, and Iris Krasnow on marriage. Colon cancer survivor and awareness advocate Eric Ehrmann, one of the original contributors to Rolling Stone in 1968, has been part of HuffPo's signature group of bloggers since 2009, posting independent political commentary on The Huffington Post, The Huffington Post UK, Le Huffington Post, El Huffington Post, and "Al Huffington Post Maghreb". It publishes scoops of current news stories and links to selected prominent news stories.[49] Author and former Hollywood story analyst Julie Gray writes for the post.[50]

The Huffington Post‍ '​s OffTheBus is a citizen-powered online news organization that is a collaboration between The Huffington Post, New York University (NYU), and Jay Rosen's NewAssignment.Net.[51][52] The Huffington Post‍ '​s FundRace is a website that tracks contributions to the presidential campaigns and includes a mapping feature that shows contributions broken down by city, neighborhood, and block.[53]

Investment

In August 2006, The Huffington Post announced that SoftBank Capital would invest $5 million in the site, which had grown in popularity in only a year, to help expand it.[54] Plans included hiring more staff to update the site 24 hours a day, hiring in-house reporters and a multimedia team to make video reports. Alan Patricof's Greycroft Partners also invested. The news marked the site's "first round of venture capital funding".[55]

The site has now invested in video blogging, with many of the site contributors contributing via video, capturing clips in the media and posting them on the site.

In November 2008, The Huffington Post completed $15 million fundraising from investors to finance expansion, including more journalism and the provision of local news across the United States.[56]

On February 7, 2011, AOL announced it would acquire The Huffington Post for US$315 million. As part of the deal, Arianna Huffington became president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, including The Huffington Post and existing AOL properties Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater (now HuffPost Celebrity), AOL Music, AOL Latino (now HuffPost Voices), AutoBlog, Patch and StyleList.[11]

Controversies and criticism

Alternative medicine and anti-vaccination

The Huffington Post has been criticized by several science bloggers, as well as online news sources, for including articles by supporters of alternative medicine and anti-vaccine activists and for allegedly censoring rebuttals written by science bloggers before publishing them.[57][58]

Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society, criticized The Huffington Post for allowing homeopathy proponent Dana Ullman to have a blog there:

Dana Ullman, a notorious homeopathy apologist, actually has a regular blog over at HuffPo. For those of us who follow such things, the start of his blog there marked the point of no return for the Huffington Post – clearly the editors had decided to go the path of Saruman and "abandon reason for madness." They gave up any pretense of caring about scientific integrity and became a rag of pseudoscience.[59]

Labor disputes

In February 2011, Visual Art Source, which had previously been cross-posting material from its website, went on strike against The Huffington Post.[60]

In March 2011, the strike and the call to boycott The Huffington Post was joined and endorsed by the National Writers Union (NWU) and the Newspaper Guild (TNG)[61] The boycott was dropped in October 2011.[62]

In April 2011, The Huffington Post was targeted with a multimillion dollar lawsuit filed in United States District Court in New York by Jonathan Tasini on behalf of thousands of uncompensated bloggers.[63] The suit was dismissed with prejudice on March 30, 2012 by the court, holding that the bloggers had volunteered their services, their compensation being publication.[64]

Political views

Although Arianna Huffington has stated that her paper is "not positioned ideologically in terms of how we cover the news," representatives of the Republican Party have indicated that they believe The Huffington Post‍ '​s headline writers, bloggers, and commentators are hostile to their views and tend to negatively spin articles, and especially headlines, about Republican Party candidates.[65] According to Michael Steel, press secretary for Republican Party House leader John Boehner, Republican aides "engage with liberal websites like The Huffington Post [anyway, if for] no other reason than [because] they drive a lot of cable coverage."[65] Jon Bekken, journalism professor at Suffolk University, has cited The Huffington Post as an example of an "advocacy newspaper."[66] Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto mockingly calls it the "Puffington Host." [67]

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "THEHUFFINGTONPOST.COM, INC. Company Information". Hoover’s Inc. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Huffingtonpost.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2015-04-11.
  3. ↑ "How Andrew Breitbart Helped Launch Huffington Post". Buzzfeed.com. February 3, 2012. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Breitbart.com has Drudge to thank for its success – CNET News". News.cnet.com. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  5. ↑ Kurtz, Howard (July 9, 2007). "A Blog That Made it Big". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 25, 2008.
  6. ↑ "The Huffington Post". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved March 3, 2009.
  7. ↑ "Huffington, AOL CEO on Shared Vision for Online Content, Ads | PBS NewsHour | Feb. 7, 2011". PBS. February 7, 2011. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  8. ↑ "W.H. sees political win in Richard Cordray move – Carrie Budoff Brown and Glenn Thrush". Politico.Com. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  9. ↑ Salmon, Felix (February 7, 2011). "HuffPo’s future | Felix Salmon". Blogs.reuters.com. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  10. ↑ Fishman, Rob (March 14, 2011). "The Huffington Post Media Group Makes Key Announcements". The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Pitney, Nico (February 7, 2011). "AOL Agrees To Acquire The Huffington Post". AOL. Retrieved February 7, 2011.
  12. ↑ Flamm, Matthew (April 16, 2012). "Digital media takes home a Pulitzer". Crain's New York Business. Retrieved April 17, 2012.
  13. ↑ eBizMBA (July 6, 2012). "Top 15 Most Popular Political Websites | July 2012". eBizMBA – The eBusiness Knowledgebase. Retrieved July 6, 2012.
  14. ↑ Andra Leurdijk; Mijke Slot; Ottilie Nieuwenhuis (2012). "The Newspaper Publishing Industry" (TECHNICAL REPORT). EU Commission. Retrieved October 6, 2013.
  15. ↑ "Direct Access: Arianna Huffington". The Washington Post. December 16, 1998. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  16. ↑ "ARIANNA ONLINE – September 14, 1998". Arianna online. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  17. ↑ "ARIANNA ONLINE – December 24, 1998 – What The Dickens Should Clinton Do?". Arianna online. December 24, 1998. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  18. ↑ Landers, Elizabeth. "Huffington Post to ban anonymous comments." CNN. August 22, 2013. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  19. ↑ "Chicago News and Opinion". The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  20. ↑ "New York News and Opinion". The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  21. ↑ "Denver News and Opinion". The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  22. ↑ Roberts, Michael (September 15, 2009). "The Debut of Huffington Post Denver". Westword. Retrieved March 20, 2010.
  23. ↑ "Los Angeles News and Opinion". The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  24. ↑ "Go West, Young Internet Newspaper: Introducing HuffPost Los Angeles". Huffington Post. December 2, 2009. Retrieved March 20, 2010.
  25. ↑ "San Francisco News and Opinion". Huffington Post. Retrieved October 11, 2011.
  26. ↑ "Detroit News and Opinion". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 21 Nov 2011.
  27. ↑ "Motoring Into the Motor City: Introducing HuffPost Detroit". Huffington Post. 17 Nov 2011. Retrieved 21 Nov 2011.
  28. ↑ "Taking Our Talents to South Florida: Introducing HuffPost Miami". The Huffington Post. 30 November 2011.
  29. ↑ "Hawaii News Coverage Expands with Launch of HuffPost Hawaii". Huffington Post. Retrieved September 8, 2013.
  30. ↑ "Huffington Post launches Canadian version". Globe and Mail (Toronto). May 26, 2011. Retrieved May 27, 2011.
  31. ↑ "Arianna 'really excited' for Huffington Post UK edition". BBC News. July 6, 2011.
  32. ↑ Sciolino, Elaine (January 23, 2012). "Editor Is the Story as the French Huffington Post Starts". New York Times (New York edition). Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  33. ↑ Huffington, Arianna. "Nothing Provincial About It: Introducing Le HuffPost Québec". Huffington Post. Retrieved February 8, 2012.
  34. ↑ "¡Bienvenidos a la Familia! Introducing HuffPost Voces" (in Spanish). The Huffington Post. 1 May 2012.
  35. ↑ Christian Stöcker (January 29, 2012). "Arianna Huffington "Wir sind optimistisch"". Der Spiegel (in German).
  36. ↑ Arianna Huffington (25 September 2013). "Benvenuti a L'Huffington Post!". The Huffington Post. Retrieved January 23, 2014.
  37. ↑ アリアナ・ハフィントンさん ザ・ハフィントン・ポスト編集長（前編） (in Japanese). Huffingtonpost.jp. 6 May 2013. Retrieved 2013-12-24.
  38. ↑ "North Africa: 'Al Huffington Post Maghreb' Officially Launched in Nation". Tunis Afrique Presse. 25 June 2013.
  39. ↑ "Liebe Grüße From Munich: HuffPost Goes to Germany | Arianna Huffington". The Huffington Post. 10 October 2013. Retrieved 2013-12-24.
  40. ↑ "Versão brasileira do Huffington Post, Brasil Post está no ar". Exame.com. 28 January 2014. Retrieved 2014-02-01.
  41. ↑ Paul Revoir (2014-08-06). "Huffington Post to launch Arabic-language edition | Media". theguardian.com. Retrieved 2014-08-13.
  42. ↑ Lukas I. Alpert (2014-09-17). "Huffington Post to Launch in Greece". wsj.com. Retrieved 2014-09-24.
  43. ↑ "Amy Neumann: Social Good Stars: Causecast CEO Ryan Scott on the Future of Cause Marketing". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2013-12-24.
  44. ↑ McGann, Laura (2013-12-20). "Huffington Post outsources section to online fundraising organization » Nieman Journalism Lab". Niemanlab.org. Retrieved 2013-12-24.
  45. ↑ Lucia Moses, "HuffPost Takes More Control of Destiny With New Ad Staff Separate From AOL", Adweek, December 12, 2013.
  46. ↑ "Craig Taro Gold Huffington Post Profile". Huffington Post. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
  47. ↑ "Jeff Halevy/ Blogger Index". Huffington Post. Retrieved February 1, 2013.
  48. ↑ "Top Posts / Blogger Index". Huffington Post. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  49. ↑ Reddi, Anand. "Anand Reddi". Huffington Post.
  50. ↑ "Julie Gray". Huffington Post. Retrieved 1 August 2014. A Hollywood refugee living in the Middle East, Julie Gray has authored two books and is working on a memoir. A former Hollywood story analyst who has taught at Warner Bros., Julie now works with entrepreneurs, writers and innovators world wide-to shape narrative, edit stories and bridge the gap between art and commerce.
  51. ↑ Fineman, Howard. "Off The Bus News and Opinion on The Huffington Post". Huffington Post. Retrieved September 2, 2009.
  52. ↑ "Get Off the Bus : CJR". cjr.org. Retrieved March 7, 2009. OffTheBus (OTB) was a citizen-powered campaign news site co-sponsored by The Huffington Post and Jay Rosen’s NewAssignment, at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
  53. ↑ "Campaign Donors : Fundrace 2008 – Huffington Post". Fundrace.huffingtonpost.com. August 28, 2009. Retrieved September 2, 2009.
  54. ↑ "The Huffington Post Announces $25 Million In Funding" (PDF). Retrieved March 7, 2009.
  55. ↑ Christopher Papagianis (February 9, 2009). "Business & Financial News, Breaking US & International News | Reuters.com". Today.reuters.com. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  56. ↑ Tony Halpin Moscow Updated 48 minutes ago (January 2, 2012). "The Times | UK News, World News and Opinion". The Times (London). Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  57. ↑ Parikh, Rahul K. (May 15, 2009). "The Huffington Post is crazy about your health". Salon. Retrieved September 2, 2009.
  58. ↑ PZ Myers (December 14, 2009). "What do Fox News and the Huffington Post have in common?". Scienceblogs.com. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
  59. ↑ Steven Novella (January 31, 2011). "Homeopathy Pseudoscience at the Huffpo". New England Skeptical Society. Retrieved February 7, 2011.
  60. ↑ Lasarow, Bill (March 5, 2011). "Why our writers are on strike against the Huffington Post – Bill Lasarow". The Guardian (London).
  61. ↑ "Don't cross the picket line – boycott the Huffington Post". June 15, 2011.Statement republished here
  62. ↑ "National Writers Union, Guild drop Huffington Post boycott". October 21, 2011.
  63. ↑ Peters, Jeremy W. (April 12, 2011). "Huffington Post Is Target of Suit on Behalf of Bloggers". Mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  64. ↑ Jonathan Stempel (September 27, 2012). "Unpaid bloggers' lawsuit versus Huffington Post tossed". Reuters. Retrieved September 27, 2012. ...no expectation of being paid, and said they got what they bargained for when their works were published.
  65. ↑ 65.0 65.1 MICHAEL CALDERONE (2009). "Republicans flock to The Huffington Post – Michael Calderone". Politico.Com. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  66. ↑ Jon Bekken, "Advocacy Newspapers," chapter in Sterling, Christopher H. (2009). Encyclopedia of Journalism. SAGE Publications. p. 32. ISBN 0-7619-2957-6.
  67. ↑ Keep Your Day Job, Arianna WSJ online, April 1, 2011
  68. ↑ "Beyond The Battlefield: From A Decade Of War, An Endless Struggle For The Severely Wounded". The Huffington Post. October 10, 2011. Retrieved April 17, 2012.
  69. ↑ "2012 Journalism Pulitzer Winners". The New York Times. April 16, 2012. Retrieved April 17, 2012.
  70. ↑ "14th Annual Webby Awards Nominees & Winners". Webbyawards.com. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  71. ↑ "New York City Hot 125". Lead411.com. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  72. ↑ "14th Annual Webby Nominees & Winners". Webbyawards.com. Retrieved April 2, 2011.
  73. ↑ 70th Annual Peabody Awards, May 2011.
  74. ↑ "The Huffington Post – 25 Best Blogs 2009". TIME. February 13, 2009. Retrieved September 2, 2009.
  75. ↑ 49th Southern California Journalism Award Winners
  76. ↑ "Bennet Kelley". Huffington Post. Retrieved March 4, 2012.
  77. ↑ Aldred, Jessica (March 9, 2008). "The world's 50 most powerful blogs". The Observer (London). Retrieved September 23, 2008.
  78. ↑ Kiri Blakeley (July 14, 2009). "In Pictures: The Most Influential Women In Media – No. 12: Arianna Huffington". Forbes. Retrieved September 2, 2009.
  79. ↑ Close (July 13, 2009). "Arianna Huffington | MediaGuardian 100 2009 | Media | guardian.co.uk". The Guardian (London). Retrieved September 2, 2009.

External links